Saturday 28 May 2011

Seeta Jazz Up Your Digital Storytelling - Feedback



Storytelling is big news at the moment, and so it should be! I have recently finished another wonderful e-course via the SEETA (South Eastern Europe Teachers' Association) on Jazz Up Your Lessons with Digital Storytelling with the lovely Ozge Karaoglu as the tutor. I knew I wanted to do this course, come what may, as soon as I saw that Ozge was going to be the tutor. She is the Queen of tech tools and her vast repertoire of sites and amazing experience in dealing with digital stories with young learners was a guaranteed sign of an exciting and jazzy course. I had the great pleasure of meeting Ozge in person in Brighton.

Press the link to listen to my Fotobabble feedback on the fab course!.

So, did I jazz up my digital storytelling skills on the course? Yes, I did! It gave me the chance to review some sites I already knew, but it also contained some really nice new tools which I'd like to look into, time permitting.

I was inspired to create a new comic to illustrate how you could use ones like makebeliefscomix.

Seeing so many faces I recognised was also a lovely feeling and everyone was very keen to share and encourage each other to do our best. Taking part in e-courses such as this one is also a great way to learn how they flow and to see the dynamics and interaction patterns within the forums.

I liked the way Ozge organised the course. It was very effective. Links to a pdf sheet of carefully selected tools in 6 different categories, and then the chance to participate in a forum to give our feedback on one or two of the new tools. I found that this was very manageable and I could easily pop in once a day to add to the forums and comment on other course members' work. A lot of creativity abounded and I learned a lot from everyone!

You can see a lot of Ozge's amazing links and resources from her blog here: 100 Digital Storytelling Tools.

I love "Daisy and Drago" that Ozge wrote herself.
Daisy and Drago
View more presentations from ozge
You can also view the amazing video of her fabulous story "Daisy and Drago and the Magic Wand", created by her 6-year-old pupils.

Thank you very much Ozge and all the course participants for helping to make it a very enjoyable and worthwhile course!!

ELTChat - Storytelling
Last Wednesday I missed one of the most interesting topics that have been discussed recently. Yes, you've guessed it already. I missed the ELTChat session on Digital Storytelling!! It's one of my favourite topics and sadly, I couldn't attend. However, Leahn Stanhope, a teacher from Fuerteventura, the Canary Islands, has done an incredible job of summarising the session in great depth. Just reading through all the links, resources, tips, ideas shared in ONLY one hour, will give you enough information to keep you doing "Storytelling" lessons happily for a very long time!! Here is the link for you to copy and then share with your colleagues. Enjoy looking at all the resources at leisure. Thank you Leahn!

http://earlyefl.blogspot.com/2011/05/eltchat-summary-storytelling.html

A Few More Links
Eva Buyukesmiyan from A Journey in TEFL blog has also written a fab blog post called "Teachers as Storytellers"

This blog post by Anita Kwiatowska caught my eye: "It was a dark and stormy night..." The blog post has some great ideas for exploiting this theme.

I recently gave a presentation on Storytelling in the Digital Era. Ana Maria Menezes from Brazil, invited me to hold a session via Wiziq. She then kindly wrote a lovely feedback post entitled "Learning with/from Janet Bianchini."

Below is my very own digital idiomatic story that took me months to create! "An Idiomatic Love Story."

An Idiomatic Love Story


Finally, one of my favourite (true) stories I've ever written is "And Then There Were Three".

Remember!
Everybody has a story within them just waiting to come out. Don't wait too long otherwise the moment will pass. Life is one big evolving story just waiting to be written!


Quote made up by me!

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6 comments:

ozge said...

Dear Janet,
I would like to thank for your fantastic ideas and being a source of endless motivation and inspiration!! This course couldn't be good without you! I am so happy to have you in my PLN and I owe Twitter for making us come together =)and hope to see you sooner than we think =)
Best wishes
Özge

Leahn said...

Hi Janet,

I can't believe I missed the course. They have so many interesting ones. Thanks for mentioning the summary I did.It was a good diccussion with loads of links.

Leahn

Ann said...

Hi Janet,

Just posted a link to this on the TeachingEnglish facebook page if you'd like to check for comments.

Please feel free to post there when you have anything you'd like to share.

Best,

Ann

Janet Bianchini said...

Dear Ozge

Thank you so much for your lovely comment here. I hope to meet you again in the near future. It was lovely to have you as my wonderful tutor :-)

Janet Bianchini said...

Hi Leahn

Yes, it was a great course and all the courses on SEETA have been exceptional.

I'm sure there will be others to come, and I'll keep an eye open and maybe we can do the next one as fellow students :-)

Janet Bianchini said...

Hi Ozge

I've only recently discovered that there were quite a few comments awaiting moderation, so that is why I didn't reply as promptly as usual. Thank you so much for your very kind words. I really hope we will meet again soon as I enjoyed chatting to you so much in Brighton!!

Best wishes

Janet